Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26 (Pentecost 8C)
St. John, Galveston 8/3/25
Rev. Alan Taylor
+ In Nomine Jesu +
Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” The preacher is Solomon, the son of Bathsheba and David, the King of Israel who was, in God’s own words, a man after His own heart. Solomon wrote several books in the Old Testament, including, The Song of Songs and The Book of Proverbs. The first verse of Ecclesiastes describes him as the author of this book as well. “The words of the Preacher, the Son of David, king in Jerusalem.”
Solomon, as you may know, was a man of great wealth. Jesus Himself made reference to Solomon’s wealth when He cautioned His disciples, and all of us, to not be anxious about material things. “Which of you (He asked) by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Ecclesiastes reflects on life’s meaning and purpose. Perhaps part of what lies behind the saying that “money can’t buy happiness” are these words of Solomon, as he reflected on his great wealth and the certainty of having to leave it all behind. “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.”
Again, both this reading from Ecclesiastes, as well as, the Gospel reading for this morning from Luke 12, draw our attention to the meaning of life and the utter meaninglessness and emptiness of a life lived apart from God. For Solomon, a life lived apart from God is one that is lived “under the sun.” For the man in the Gospel reading, who is deemed “a fool,” it is the one who “lays up treasure on earth, but is not rich toward God.”
There are, of course, many interpretations of the meaning of life. The great author, Leo Tolstoy, came close to a purely Biblical definition of life’s meaning, when he wrote, “the sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” From a humorous perspective, in the book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” the meaning of life is said to be the number 42. While 42 isn’t a literal answer to the meaning of life in a real-world sense, it serves as a humorous commentary on the search for meaning and the potential absurdity of trying to find a single, definitive answer to life’s meaning. Of course, pop culture offers it’s own interpretations of life’s meaning too. Two bumper stickers come to mind. One says “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” The other, which offers a bit of a challenge in life’s daily grind, says, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.”
Solomon’s mournful cry at the beginning of Ecclesiastes, as well as elsewhere in the book, represents his reflection on a life lived “under the sun,” which is to say, without God. Again, his pondering is vividly displayed in the life of the man in the Gospel reading, who said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” “Fool (Jesus said)! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
”If the dead are not raised (the Scriptures say), (which, by the way, some people claimed then, even as they claim today). If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
Life in this world simply cannot sufficiently approximate all of the good that God intended for His creation, whether one believes in God or not. Of course, if one doesn’t believe in God, life carries with it a necessary emptiness, a vacuum, if you will, which is void of meaning and purpose. “All (man’s) days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation (says Solomon). Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
The redemption that is yours in Christ Jesus is more than just the forgiveness of sins, although, it is certainly a great and wondrous forgiveness that is yours in Jesus. God’s redemption of the world is also about God imbuing life with meaning, with goodness and beauty, even with love and hope. Even death itself, can be viewed in the light of God’s grace and goodness. While death is always the wage of sin and the enemy of mankind, in Christ Jesus, it is also the portal through which the redeemed of God enter into His presence.
In a sermon that Luther preached about Abraham and the prospect of the sacrifice of his son, Isaac, he said the following. “Who can harmonize and reconcile the thoughts: death is not death, but is life?—Moses himself asserts the opposite. For if you listen to the Law, it tells you: In the midst of life we are in death, as the church sings in an old Christian hymn. But this is the song of the Law only; for the Gospel and faith reverse it and sing thus: In the midst of death we are in life; we praise Thee, Lord God, our Redeemer; Thou hast raised us from death and saved us. So we sing because the Gospel teaches that in death itself there is life. This something unknown to and impossible according to the Law and human reason.”
“Death, having been swallowed up in victory,” means that, in Christ, hope springs eternal, not because life loses it’s toil and it’s arduous nature, but because God redeems all things, giving purpose and meaning, even to the trials and sufferings through which we must often pass this side of heaven.
It’s Jesus who puts meaning into our lives. Ultimately, our purpose is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But, along with that, our purpose is to meet each new day in the assurance that God is on our side, and that everything, be it bane or blessing, is filled with meaning because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, which both occurred in time because of God’s great love for you.
“What then shall we say to these things (asks the apostle)? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”
Life has meaning and purpose in the love of God for His creation. Even Solomon concluded as much. “There is a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” In Christ Jesus, “there is a time for every matter under heaven.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +